What's the little "package sensor" technology company being hinted at in the ads for Early Advantage?

Nick Hodge is peddling subscriptions to his Early Advantage (currently $1,299/year, 30-day refund period promised) using the pitch that one tiny company has the patents on a key thin film sensor technology that will become the “barcode of the future” and “revolutionize Amazon’s supply chain.”

So what is it? Let’s check out the details…

Hodge says that this new “smart chip” technology will play a big role in the “Internet of Things,” as cheap new stickers that boast a huge amount of data are rolled out to prevent counterfeiting, inform customers about what a package has been through (for things like temperature or breakage), or otherwise identify tampering or convey some kind of a marketing message. Here’s a bit from the ad:

“Forbes says it will ‘power the $19 trillion Internet of Things.’

“Think about that.

“The Internet of Things is a historic mega-trend that will drive all technology in the 21st century.

“It’s set to eclipse everything from the smartphone to the Internet.

“And leading analysts claim this device is the missing link that will make it all happen!

“Now here’s the most exciting part…

“One tiny tech play with 18 patents on this technology just recently IPO’d.

“And it trades at a mere 30 cents per share.”

OK, so we know that if it’s trading at “a mere 30 cents” it’s either not a US-listed company, or not really a recent IPO. Major exchanges in the US won’t list penny stocks like that, and, sadly the term “recent” does not have a specific legal definition.

And Hodge also indicates that he thinks this stock will get bought out by a bigger company:

“You’ll see how some of the biggest consumer brand names are already lining up behind this technology, including L’Oréal and other household names.

“And you’ll see why it’s on the verge of a billion-dollar buyout that could make every early investor rich — no matter how much you invest.”

So what is this actual technology? More from the ad:

“It’s called ‘printed electrochromics.’

“I call them ‘smart chips.’

“In reality, they are electronics so small that they’re embedded right into inks that can be printed on nearly anything.

“We’re talking advanced sensing and connectivity capabilities on a nano-scale.

“‘Smart labels’ will now be printed at a pace that keeps up with its large corporate clients.

“And the profit margins are sky high!”

And apparently this is all happening now:

“2019 is expected to be the year when the shift to roll-to-roll production starts.

“Potentially setting this 30-cent stock on an astronomic breakout to $3… $30 and beyond.”

And that’s about it… so what’s the stock?

Thinkolator sez that this is almost certainly a teensy microcap that went public through a reverse takeover of an old mining shell company on the Toronto Venture exchange about a year ago, with the new name Ynvisible Interactive (YNV.V, YNVYF OTC in the US).

Ynvisible, it turns out, is a perfect match for this tease, trading at about 30 cents in Canada before getting a big spike from the Hodge attention, and even has the presentations from which Nick Hodge borrowed the images of the little package “smart labels.” They also claim 18 patents on their products, which matches the clues.

L’Oreal is also hinted at as a customer by Hodge, and that’s about the only one of the claimed clients that Ynvisible posts on its website that any of us would recognize.

The standard warning about this stock is that Nick Hodge’s attention has had a big and fast impact on very small and lightly-traded stocks many times in the past, as would anybody who puts big promo campaigns together focused on sub-$100 million microcap companies… and in my experience, pretty much all of these surges eventually give way. This one is absurdly small, their latest fundraising was in a private placement of three million shares, and even that doesn’t move the needle much — that would mean they have 55 million shares outstanding, plus a bunch of warrants, and at C$0.41 per share today that’s still a sub-$25 million market capitalization.

Which means WE SHOULD NOT BE MESSING AROUND WITH THIS. The stock could easily quadruple in value or fall by 90% in the blink of an eye, given its minuscule size, but the only real reason for a company like this to be public is that it makes it easier for them to raise money without much oversight (and without giving up control to big investors). The world is awash in venture capital funding that would be delighted to commercialize a valuable new idea, and if Amazon wanted to have this kind of little sticker on each of its packages they could easily have bought the company for pocket change at any point in the past five years (it’s been around as a R&D startup for a while).

It is important, when looking at microcap stocks like this that are sold on the basis of an imagined future where they suddenly take over a massive sector of the economy, to try to think rationally — How can you reconcile this notion that somehow the company will be the dominant force in a trillion-dollar industry with the fact that there are lots of multi-billion dollar companies already dominating that industry who know what’s going on better than any of us, and yet have chosen not to acquire this little bite-size R&D company.

Yes, I’m sure sometimes fantastic little companies squeeze through the cracks and don’t get noticed even if they have a real breakthrough product or real potential… and you can try to sniff those out if you like, particularly if you enjoy the gambling part of being a small cap speculator, but these little $20-50 million companies also often turn out to be the ones that just hire stock promoters or suck up to newsletter writers and raise a few million dollars from a new group of shareholders every few months to keep their salaries going. That doesn’t have to be a nefarious goal, I’m sure that Ynvisible would love to explode with growth on the strength of their ideas and technology… but when that doesn’t work immediately, companies do what they have to in order to survive.

So will this be one of the gems? Feel free to go forth, researchify, and try to determine whether Ynvisible is worth a tumble… but please do so with the expectation that your investment will probably bounce around like crazy for a little while if Nick Hodge keeps promoting it, but will also very likely fall sharply at some point. Perhaps soon, since the million dollars they raised two months ago is probably pretty close to spent, which means, if they know what they’re doing, they’ll very likely use the price spike on this Hodge attention to raise more money. The one rule for microcaps, as far as I can tell, is “never miss an opportunity to raise money,” and I’ve never found a company that raised a total of $1 million in a private placement that turned out to be worth buying. Breakthrough companies with world-changing technology should not have to raise money a million dollars at a time to pay the rent and meet payroll.

That’s probably a little harsh, but since I’m writing to a few thousand of my closest friends about a little microcap company, I have to be clear: The fact that Nick Hodge wrote about this stock is going to have a lot more to do with the stock price for the next few months than the company’s fundamental performance… heck, the fact that I’m writing about it is likely to have as much impact on the stock price as the fundamental performance for at least the next day or two. Microcap stocks that trade in tiny volume are very sensitive to publicity… don’t mistake temporary publicity for “growth.”

That’s all said without actually knowing anything about the business of Ynvisible, other than that it matches the clues. So what do we know?

Well, they have announced that they have commercial contracts that they think will reach market this year — these are “smart label” contracts, which basically use Ynvisible’s electrochromic ink (basics of the technology explained here) to provide visual feedback for RFID and smart packaging technologies… with the advantage seeming to be the visual aspect, with their technology providing a signal to people handling a package instead of having to be read by some kind of machine or sensor… and you can see their announced “year in review” here that sums up the progress they made in 2018. You can see their last quarterly MD&A here, they seem to have been funded over the past two or three years mostly by EU grants and prototyping projects, and there is no trend in the results that one can easily identify for the past ten quarters or so that would make you think that grants or prototype revenue are ramping up… and, as will come as no surprise, they don’t think they’ll be making money soon:

“In management’s view, given the nature of the Company’s operations, the Company does not expect to receive significant income from any of its projects in the near term.”

So no, Amazon is not going to suddenly release new “smart labels” on all its packages this year… but maybe someday, over the next several years, Ynvisible will manage to get few big commercial customers to scale up its printing technology — we’re probably a long way from that, given that the company is not even yet talking in any meaningful way about what their financial model might be in any future commercialization deals (royalties? Equipment and supply sales? Joint ventures? No idea), but hope springs eternal.

And no, just to be clear, I don’t own this one. For disclosure’s sake, the only stock I own that’s mentioned above is Amazon. And as with all companies I write about here at Stock Gumshoe, I will not trade any stock mentioned in this article for at least three days.

So what do you think? Big things ahead for these printed electronic displays? Think Ynvisible will somehow dominate the sector? Have any other thoughts on companies or trends in the space you think would be more worthwhile to follow? Let us know with a comment below… thanks for reading!

Irregulars Quick TakePaid members
get a quick summary of the stocks teased and our thoughts here.
Join as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today (already a member? Log in)

Travis, good research, this stock does sound interesting! UPS uses some time of label to track packages sent but I think they know mainly where it passed thru and was last. They shipped a suitcase (empty) which was supposed to go to me but actually went to another house. I told them to go pick it up and deliver it to me. They just shipped me a another new suitcase cause no one was home where they delivered the first one. Crazy! Anyway the stock….I believe has potential on the idea itself. Thanks for sharing!

I’m 100% with you on anything to do with Nick Hodge. Last time it was MAX, a supposed 20 million ounce gold project. His promotion jacked the price up to $1.20 or so and from there it went down to the low .60 cents if I recall. No information has been forthcoming on MAX for months, even though it was supposed to be permitted by this past January. So maybe the best idea on this one is to wait until the price collapses to .20 cents and take it from there. Thanks for the great review Travis.

sorry but apart from l’Oreal I have also heard of Stora-Enso. is this company Portuguese? that would be cool as I studied the language for years along with Russian and never got to use either of them much.

Would an example of electronics IN ink be what’s in HP printer ink – where it can tell if non-HP ink was loaded to a cartridge after it originally ran out – and have your pc give you an option not to use the not-officially refilled cartridge?

As I understand it, this is not really standalone ink, what the make are low-cost roll-printed (they hope) printed circuits that have responsive ink that can display a changing message based on whatever the sensor input is.

There are lots of different sensor and thin film technologies out there, from what I can tell, and I’m no expert on the technical details.

Great write-up all around! Stock investing aside, these teasers are always interesting for the projected future of technology. In terms of stock investing, I love where Travis grounded the endless possibilities of their pitch with sound reasoning! Ultimately, stock investing is more about probabilities than possibilities.

Is this the same Nick Hodge who recommended Millrock Resources last June at 30 cents which now trades for 8 cents? Caveat Emptor! It’s hard to see how this joker has any subscribers. I think that I could do as well (which isn’t saying anything at all) as Hodge. Do you need any credentials for starting an investment newsletter? I’m retired and if there are folks out there willing to shell out a 1000 / year for my prognostications, I should definitely look into this. I assume you can’t be sued for giving consistently bad advice.

I read the original Hodge, the part that got me was the idea it can be used in meat packing, which would be good for amazon. It would stop meat loss if all producers used it. spent a day trying to find this co, Thank you,Travis.

Let us not forget Hodge’s Pump and Dump of Millrock Resources (OTQCX – MLRKF, TSX Venture – MRO). He got that one up over 30 cents per share (U.S.) and now it’s down to just a tad over 6 cents per share.

I found out what this stock was in about thirty second by simply Googling “printed electochromics”. Hodge should have disguised this if he wanted people to shell out $$$ for his newsletter! I agree with Travis. If the Amazon wants or need this tech they will develop “in-house, or simply buy this company with the lint from Jeff Bezos’ pocket.

I just can’t tell whether a stock that ” went public through a reverse takeover of an old mining shell company on the Toronto Venture exchange about a year ago, with the new name Ynvisible Interactive” is an “irrational number” or a “transcendental number”. Thank you!

I was surprised to learn that AMZN, being the largest American corporation has paid no taxes to the Federal Government . I think this is what it meant when President trump says that I am going to give every one a tax break.

Amazon is one of the largest corporations by market capitalization, but nowhere near being a large company if your measurement is profit… and Federal taxes are based on profit, not sales. Amazon has earned a TOTAL of less than $20 billion in profits in its entire existence, and three quarters of that was earned in just the last two years. Apple, by contrast, has recorded about $200 billion in profits over the past three years (total for the three years, not annually) and provisioned about $45 billion of that for income taxes. I say this as an Amazon shareholder: The… Read more »

On a follow through search for this post YNVYF buyer, I found an article (Yahoo Bus.) re. 2 past and this current joint operation with Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in Freiburg, Germany! They are hard headed scientists in business to figure out how silicate sicence (chip related data device chemistry or physics; or the physics of chemistry-Who knows? Lib Arts Grad-uncles counsins, Dad, were chemists, not I.) can innovate then evolve that result into a real useable product to grassroots pre-marketing product finalization like B2B or SaaS. In this joint project agreement it looks like they are forming a plan to benefit… Read more »

Friday File: “Mysterious M-Boxes” and more

Short Bits for a Short Month

This site and Stock Gumshoe publications and authors do not offer individual financial, investment, medical or other advice.
Nothing on this site should ever be considered to be personal advice, research or an invitation to buy or sell any securities. We also make mistakes and bad decisions sometimes, and our reasoning or data should be checked against trusted sources before they inform your investing decisions. Choices regarding how to invest your money or otherwise manage your life or finances are yours, we share only our analysis and opinion and all
authors or commenters are individually responsible for the words and opinions they share here. Please read our important disclaimers and policies. Stock Gumshoe is supported by subscribers and by sponsors and advertisers. Stock Gumshoe's employee authors will disclose holdings in any stock covered at time of publication and will not trade in any stocks written about for at least three days after publication. Please see below for complete disclosure, disclaimer and policy information.